Category: Community
Door County community news from the Peninsula Pulse. Find information about health programs, fundraisers, announcements, and more to keep you in the loop in your community.
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The Story of a Studio Potter: Brian Fitzgerald Working in Clay ’til the End
“What do you want to do for the rest of your life?” This is a rather daunting question for most anyone, usually answered with a wrinkling of the eyebrows and a contemplative “Hmmm,” or with a shrug of the shoulders and simple “I don’t know.” For those people who actually have an answer to the […]
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Prohibition Era in Door County
As the harsh Door County winter settled in shortly before Thanksgiving in 1933, John R. Seaquist addressed the Door County Council of Religious Education at the Ephraim Moravian Church. On that 19th day of November, just two weeks before the repeal of the 18th Amendment would be ratified, Seaquist pledged his organization “to do all […]
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Beyond Coincidence: Catherine Hoke-Gonzales
Everybody comes from somewhere – either here or somewhere else – but in a place like Door County, it can be both here and somewhere else. Take Cathy Hoke-Gonzales, the current Director of the Peninsula Art School (PAS). If you go to www.gbhconsulting.com, the website of the consulting firm she established here with Mariah Goode, […]
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The First Door County Residents: Native American Tribes in Door County
Before Swedes or Norwegians; before Moravians or Belgians. Before Captain Bailey or Increase Claflin; even before French explorers such as Nicolet and Radisson, who began visiting the area in the 17th Century. For hundreds of years before European exploration and settlement in the Great Lakes region of what we now call the United States, indigenous […]
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Green. Sustainable. And the seemingly ubiquitous “reduce, re-use, recycle” mantra. What exactly do these words mean, particularly when describing a home? Local licensed architect Virge Temme, designing sustainable buildings since 1992, quickly clears up one source of confusion: “green” and “sustainable” are interchangeable terms. She goes on to explain that “green architecture is a well-reasoned […]
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A Family Man Foremost: Fred Anderson
Prior to our interview, I asked a handful of people, “What do you know about Fred Anderson?” Expecting the usual pleasantries and biographical snippets, instead I got a unanimous reply: Fred Anderson might very well be the nicest guy on the planet. That seemed like an extreme statement. How could one even begin to quantify […]
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The Legacy of an Industry: Quarrying for Stone in Door County
A deep dive into the history and legacy of the quarrying industry in Door County, one of the peninsula’s first exports.
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Centered on the Sun: Solar energy in a timber frame home
On a stretch of land just north of Baileys Harbor three ancient meadows converge. A satellite image of the land, with its dark patches of tamarack and spreading juniper, suggests a lunar landscape unblemished save for a winding stripe left long ago by some wayward adventurer. But the house that has settled into this primitive […]
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Coming to a Shoreline Near You: Phragmites Australis a.k.a. “Phrankengrass”
This is a tale of invasion, the story of an alien grass that is steadily taking over the shorelines and wetlands of Northeast Wisconsin. The bad seed in this story is an exotic, or non-native, strain of phragmites australis, otherwise known as common reed grass. Unfortunately for most residents of the Door Peninsula – human, […]
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Marketing Consultant Presents Plan Outline to Coalition
A marketing consultant contracted by the Door County Peninsula Strategic Marketing Coalition pulled no punches in assessing all parts of the county’s tourism engine during an informal question and answer session Wednesday, May 31 with 19 attendees at the Baileys Harbor Town Hall.
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Faces of the Past: Chester Thordarson
One of the most fascinating characters in Door County’s history has to be Chester Thordarson, particularly where Rock Island is concerned. Born in Iceland in 1867, Thordarson immigrated with his family to Milwaukee when he was nearly six years old. Chester and his family moved throughout the Midwest and by the time he was 20, […]
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Finding “Door County Beautiful”: One historian’s discovery of the roots of tourism
For any tourist destination such as Door County, marketing the place and what it has to offer is absolutely essential. The medium for delivering the message has commonly fallen to some form of ephemera. Ephemera is printed matter intended to be of use and value for only a very short period of time. Current examples […]
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It hits us when we’re home alone and we shut off the TV, revealing the eerie silence of an empty house. Sometimes you feel it when you drag the garbage to the curb at night, or for the rurally inclined, to the burning barrel in the back yard. The feeling, the sense, that someone else […]
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Dedicated to a Life of Service: Denise Bhirdo
Denise Bhirdo has dedicated her life to service. Whether serving the customers of her long-established Sister Bay business, or in her time-consuming role as a local government official, Denise Bhirdo spends more time than most attending to the needs of other people in the county. Denise is the co-owner of Bhirdo’s By The Bay, a […]
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The Patricia Shoppe: Bringing Legacies Together Through Renovation
Originally built in the 1880s, the former Egg Harbor Town Hall was the site of town elections and public gatherings (including the popular Saturday Afternoon Movie showing) for over 100 years until finally closing its doors as a public meeting place and government building in 1990. A simple clapboard building with a slightly raised stage […]
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While quaint summer cottages and condominium conveniences appeal to many seasonal residents of the peninsula, for others, there’s simply no place like “home” – away from home that is. A condo is often where it all starts, the day-dreaming, that is, the constant dreaming about the “perfect Door County home.” For Bob Murphy, it began […]
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Stovewood: Pioneer Construction
Between roughly the late 1880s and World War I, a type of construction known as “stovewood” was employed in the United States. Stovewood, Richard W. E. Perrin writes in Historic Wisconsin Buildings: A Survey in Pioneer Architecture 1835-1870, “appears to be the only type of log construction that does not have any clear-cut antecedents in […]
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Passing along History: Two Local Women Team up for Book on Sturgeon Bay’s Past
History, like languages, can be lost unless passed on through word-of-mouth or written documentation. Sturgeon Bay’s beginnings could become whispers of a time that once was, but with the help of two employees at the Door County Museum, Ann Jinkins and Head Curator Maggie Weir, along with the Arcadia Press, future generations who reside in […]
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Location and Longevity: A History of Two Cheese Factories in Door County
It seems that no matter how many yellowed pages are flipped back through the history books, Door County is remembered for growing fruit. However, cherry and apple blossoms are not the only agriculture to speckle the horizons of Door County’s history. Door County has had a rich, agricultural tradition over the years which includes contributing […]
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I’ve seen you do it, and I do it, too: pull over to the side of the road, jump out of the car, and attempt – most often in vain – to capture the essence of a big old wooden Door County barn with a camera. My particular favorites are those slightly or even largely […]